Posts Tagged ‘Haredi’

The announcement by the 75-year old Crown Market in West Hartford, Connecticut, that it would be closing sent shock waves through the Jewish community.

Mark Bakeoff, who bought the market five years ago, said tough economic conditions and increasing competition have made things difficult, but the biggest blow came with “one of the worst winters on record in a decade.” Despite attempts to save the market, the owner is not optimistic. Sources told Kosher Today that the store did not cater to the community’s small but growing Orthodox community.

Mark Silk, a professor of religion in public life at Trinity College in Hartford, explains that one of the reasons Crown Market is closing is because “the Ultra-Orthodox did not believe the market was kosher enough and refused to patronize it.” Silk goes on to explain that modern Judaism has seen a decline among what he terms the “Modern Orthodox” and an increase in the number of Ultras. Rabbi Ilana Garber, a Conservative rabbi and a loyal Crown customer, is leading the efforts to save the supermarket.

The announcement of the pending closure resulted in some soul searching by many Jews in the community. One blogger wrote: “I chose to shop at the new neighborhood Wal-Mart because we wanted to save money. What I realize now, much too late, is that if I had shopped at Crown and paid a little bit more, I would have been supporting this important part of the Jewish community that we cherish and love. And now, with a heavy heart, I admit I was wrong. I apologize. I know that isn’t enough. I wish it were. I wish I could promise to shop there for now on. I wish I could get 500 families to pledge to do the same. I wish I had known they were in trouble so I could have done something, anything.”

Other bloggers also shed tears and one vacationer in Turks and Cacos even placed an order long distance. Many markets and even restaurants have opened because of a pledge of community support only to close when the support was not forthcoming. The upscale Le Masada Restaurant in the Hyatt Regency in Chicago was one such case in the late ‘90’s.

Haredi Orthodox yeshiva students will face criminal charges for dodging the draft under a proposed law, after the intervention of the prime minister, Israeli media has reported.

Under the proposed military draft law, the Haredi men would be criminally charged for evading the draft, but the penalties would not go into effect until 2017, according to reports. In addition, draft orders for Haredim up to age 26 will not go into effect until up to a year after the law goes into effect.

The Shaked Committee that is preparing the draft law was set to meet Wednesday to vote on the final proposal of the bill, which will likely be brought before the full Knesset in March.

Lawmakers from the Sephardi Shas and Haredi United Torah Judaism parties have threatened to drop out of the committee.

The Tal Law, which allowed Haredi men to defer army service indefinitely, was invalidated by the Supreme Court in February 2012 and expired in August that year. Haredi yeshiva students since then have had their drafts deferred.

Hillary Clinton is the odds-on favorite as Democratic presidential candidate for the 2016 elections, and if the Republicans continue to prefer arguing rather than uniting, she will succeed.

In Israel, none other than Adina Bar Shalom, the Haredi left-wing daughter of the late Torah sage Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is contemplating running for the post that will be vacant with the end of the term of President Shimon Peres this year. The Knesset elects the president.

Bar Shalom, 69, said last month that she has not talked with anyone about the possibility of running, but she told the Forward this week she might take the plunge. She said she is now talking about the prospect with several key people and supporters who believe she can be a “bridge between religion and the state.”

One of the reasons for her hesitation on declaring herself as a candidate is that she wants to know who else will be running. Another woman, former Supreme Court Justice Dalia Dorner whose decisions were left-leaning, said Thursday she intends to run for president.

So far, veteran Knesset Members Reuven Rivlin of the Likud and Binyamin “Fuad” Ben-Eliezer of Labor have announced their candidacies, as has outsider Dan Shectman, who like Bar Shalom has no experience in politics. The Technion University scientist is a Noble Prize winner in chemistry.

The position of presidency had been a ceremonial one until Ezer Weizmann actively pushed political policies during his term of office in the 1990s, and Peres has often acted more like Prime Minister then president.

Bar Shalom might win support from Israel’s popular media, which would promote her because of her leftist views and because she is a woman, considered to be a credential in and of itself by a pro-feminist media.

She told the Forward she firmly believes Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas is a “partner for peace” and believes his statements that “I won’t allow terrorists and terror” and “I prevent the terror.”

She founded a college for Haredi women in 2000 and which now is also open to men, who learn separately from women.

Hate graffiti and swastikas painted on a Haredi Orthodox school in Be’er Sheva is the result of “incitement against the Haredi Orthodox,” the Shas Party said Wednesday after the vandalism at the entrance to the school was discovered.

“The public atmosphere against the haredi public and Torah students has gotten out of control and actually encourages harassment of the haredi Orthodox public,” Shas party leader Aryeh Deri wrote on his Facebook page.

The Haredi community has been under fire over the drafting of yeshiva students into the army. A Knesset committee is working to prepare a universal draft law for its second and third reading in the full parliament that would drastically reduce the number of deferments for yeshiva students.

However, Be’er Sheva synagogues and schools, including those that are not Haredi, have frequently been the targets of anti-Semites. Several thousand non-Jews of Russian origin live in the city.

The head of a Haredi Orthodox group in Israel called on parents to prevent their children from dressing up as Israeli soldiers for Purim.

Rabbi Mordechai Blau, head of the Guardians of Sanctity and Education, cited tension over the drafting of yeshiva students in offering the warning on Wednesday. Israeli army costumes are popular among young Orthodox boys at Purim time.

“We are at a time of evil decrees, and dressing up as a soldier in this period does not increase happiness, rather it increases sadness,” Blau said, according to the Israel Hayom Hebrew-language daily newspaper. “There are children for whom soldiers are likely to take on a frightening meaning, like taking their older brother away” to the army.

Rather, the rabbi suggested, boys should dress in U.S. Army costumes for next month’s holiday.

Last week Haredi Orthodox demonstrators throughout Israel protested against millions of dollars in cuts to yeshiva funding ordered by Finance Minister Yair Lapid in response to a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court over the Haredi Orthodox yeshiva students’ draft deferrals.

A government committee headed by lawmaker Ayelet Shaked of the Jewish Home Party is working to finish revising a universal draft law that already has passed its first reading in the Knesset. The final bill is expected to be brought for its second and third reading in mid-March.

The leaders of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta in previous years have urged their followers not to dress up on Purim as soldiers, policemen or rescue workers.

The Israeli Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the government to cease all funding of yeshivas whose students do not enlist in the IDF.

The decision struck in one blow further sealed the fate of Haredi leaders fighting the “equal burden” policy pursued by Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid and also gave him a needed boost in popularity polls that are bound to return to his party several seats that surveys have projected he will lose in the next election.

The ruling affects yeshiva students who are ages 18 to 20 but only affects those yeshiva that are funded by the Education Ministry.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s has decided to delay their draft date, but the court still has not discussed an appeal that seeks to eliminate the delay and order the yeshiva students to enlist immediately.

An Ontario judge ruled Monday that children from a fringe Haredi sect whose members fled Quebec while the community was being investigated by social services should be returned to the province.

The court upheld a Quebec order to place 13 children from the Lev Tahor sect into temporary foster care, The Canadian Press reported, but the judge placed a 30-day stay on the order to give the families time to appeal.

The children, who live outside Chatham, Ontario, about two hours southwest of Toronto, were ordered into temporary foster care by a Quebec court in November.

Authorities in Quebec, where sect members had lived north of Montreal for several years, said they had evidence of neglect, psychological abuse, poor dental and physical health, and a substandard education regime in the community.

The 13 children belong to three families. A publication ban prohibits identifying them, and the community denies all allegations and has said it is the victim of a Zionist smear effort.

Last week, Quebec police, with the assistance of local officers, raided two homes in the Lev Tahor community in Ontario. Rabbi Nachman Helbrans, son of sect founder Shlomo Helbrans, said the search may have been an attempt to find evidence of illegal child marriages.

A former sect member testified in Quebec that he had personally witnessed seven underage marriages.